


the night before (life goes on)

by jessequicksters



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Childhood Friends, F/M, First Kiss, High School, Reminiscing, Summer Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-23 17:49:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17688032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessequicksters/pseuds/jessequicksters
Summary: Tony and Sharon are drunk on a rooftop during one of their last summer nights before they part ways: Tony to MIT, Sharon to S.H.I.E.L.D. They talk about everything: their family legacies, who they want to be when they grow older and their long-running childhood crush on Captain America. It feels like time is passing by too quickly for these two young people, whose futures seem to be set in stone no matter what they choose to do.





	the night before (life goes on)

**Author's Note:**

> title inspired by carrie underwood's: the night before (life goes on)

It’s the summer before Tony is supposed to go to MIT, and he’s drunk on a rooftop with Sharon in the early hours of the morning. They’ve both just come back from a house party they snuck off to while the adults were at home discussing ‘business’ too important to be spoken around the kids. He didn’t even particularly care for the party host, just needed to be somewhere other than the suffocating confines of his house.

He’s only glad that Aunt Peggy and Sharon are around for a couple weeks this summer, even if it’s to do with dad’s super-secret-project of the month. It distracts him enough from asking too many questions at Tony, never designed for satisfactory answers, hard as he tried. Sharon’s great enough not to bullshit through niceties around dad, which Tony has always found hilarious because he can never say shit about it given the fact that she’s Aunt Peggy’s niece.

“I wish you came over more,” Tony turns to her, tightening the leather jacket around his shoulders as he dangled the bottle of whiskey against the moon in the sky, trying to see how much is left.

“Well, I’m here all summer, aren’t I?” Sharon’s already seemed to find a comfortable position, lying on her back facing the stars.

“I just wish you were here before the summer—and after, too,” Tony admits. “I just talk so much when I’m with you. Every time we meet up in the summers, I end up taking up so much air—”

Sharon starts giggling now, half snorting as she throws an arm over her eyes. “You say it like you don’t enjoy it.”

“I do! That’s the thing, I can admit that I do! I love hanging out with you, uh, Share-bear?” 

She shakes her head, still laughing. “Try again.” 

“Ms. Car—Carton? Sharon Cartoons,” Tony starts breaking into a fit of giggles now as he nearly drops the bottle of whiskey from his hand and into the pool below them at his mansion.

“Stop it,” Sharon chides, reaching out for the bottle. “Give that to me. We’ve had so much to drink tonight the stars look so close.”

Tony relinquishes the whiskey bottle and Sharon folds her hands over it as it sits on her stomach. He lies next to her, shoulders touching as he notices that she’s wearing a sleeveless top.

“Are you cold? Here, take my jacket.”

“Oh, no, I’m fine—” 

Tony sits back up to peel off his jacket before laying it on top of her like a blanket. She smiles as she looks up at him, cheeks bright red from the alcohol, lips stained with wine from the party.

“You’d be a great engineer,” Tony blurts out.

“What?” 

“I said it. Come with me to MIT, it’ll be fun. At least we’d know each other, you know, and whenever we get roped into dangerous hazing parties we’ll have each other’s backs.”

“I can’t just walk into MIT, Tony,” she rolls her eyes before closing them again. “And before you tell me to pull the Carter card, don’t. I’m not going to do that and I never will.”

Tony can respect that much about her. He honestly doesn’t know what he would do without the Stark name. Everything’s lined up for him. He’s got Stark Industries on lock for the rest of his life—and he knows damn well that so many young entrepreneurs and engineers would kill to be in his shoes, to have the resources, opportunities, and connections that he had.

Sharon has the same thing going for her, except she’s never expressed the slightest bit of hesitation or reluctance about joining S.H.I.E.L.D. It’s funny, looking back, at the number of times they’ve had this same conversation over the years. Nothing ever changes between them. Tony sighs and tells her that he doesn’t want to even think about running Stark industries until at least he’s 30, by which point, he hopes he’s gone out there and made a name for himself before inheriting the kingdom, while Sharon’s answer has always been the same. She wants to join S.H.I.E.L.D and lead it someday just like Aunt Peggy, and it was as simple as that. 

As Tony tries to maneuver over to her other side, because he may or may not have spilled some juice on his side, he slips and ends up face first on the hard tiles of the rooftop. Sharon immediately rolls him over so that he’s lying on his back again and brushes the bits of debris off his face.

“Maybe I might come to MIT with you,” she smiles, “so that you don’t end up dead in a ditch somewhere during orientation week.”

He stretches his face into a grin, a quite painful one, at that.

“What do you think they’ve been talking about all this time?” Sharon asks, looking back at the main area of the mansion across the pool where the lights inside are still on.

“Beats me. Although I’m surprised they haven’t seen us out here, yet. Maybe they’ve finally found Captain America under the ice or something.” Tony makes an exaggerated shocked face and Sharon just drags his hands off his cheeks.

“I’m pretty sure Aunt Peggy would be the first person on a flight to wherever he is if that’s the case.”

“Huh, I don’t know, dad might be in the lead with that one. I’m pretty sure he’d much quicker fly to rescue a dead man in the ice over his own son if he found out that I was in trouble.”

Sharon frowns at that. “Don’t say that!”

“Why, ‘cause it’s true?”

“Because you don’t need him to rescue you, Tony. For all your problems with him, you both have the same thing in common: you both have brilliant minds. You’ll even supersede him one day. If he can’t see that in you then he’s not worth your time, and sooner than later you’ll be charging big numbers for your time.”

“I like the way you think, Ms. Carter. You’re going to be a kickass, nothing-less-than-terrifying agent. Still think you’ll have time to see me over the once you’re a super busy, super secret spy?”

“Maybe I’ll give you a call if we ever do find Captain America in the ice,” she says, throwing him a suggestive look from over her shoulder, “then you can see him up close and tell him all the things you’ve been telling me all these years.”

“We’d both have some pretty incriminating things to say about each other. God, what have our families done for us apart from giving us an unhealthy obsession with a dead American icon, ” Tony says as Sharon laughs into his shoulder.

He then feels her hand resting over his head, and it turns to gentle strokes. He’s always known she has soft hands, but he’s never felt her like this before. Up close, with stars in his eyes, she looks like someone he’s seeing for the very first time, even when she’s been here all along. He hopes that she would stay in his life for years to come too.

They kiss that night, but it’s nothing if not another conversation between them, a continuation of all the feelings they’ve exchanged from every summer they’ve spent together, like redrawing light circles into the air with firesticks before they die out again. He doesn’t want them to ever die out. He thinks about the future and hopes that it’s as bright as this night, with Sharon in his arms. They both dream of the people they have yet to become, born from American ideals and family legacies that they will someday grow out of but tonight, they can just be themselves.


End file.
